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16 July 2014

Checking in from the Gem State!

After a long couple of days of driving, we've made it to our final destination!

On Saturday, my Husband and some of his buddies got left at 4:45am and rode the Seattle to Portland bike race (200 miles y'all! eeeek!), while Easton and I drove down to meet him at the finish line. We made it in good time and checked into the hotel to get settled. We then headed to the park where the cyclists where coming in to start the long anticipated wait for Daddy!!

We arrived there at 5pm, and the place was buzzing with families and friends waiting for their riders to come in! It's a good thing they had this little splash pad area for the kids to play in because it was super hot and miserable outside. I can't even imagine being on my bike all day in that heat, my poor Husband. lol

After about an hour of playing in the water, Easton was starting to get tired. I kept checking my phone for updates to find out an ETA from Philip, but obviously, it's hard to know for sure and it's not the easiest thing to text and ride. ;-) So... we waited some more. I pretty much just bought a bunch of snacks to distract him while we waited.

This really only kept him happy for about 20 minutes. I kept telling him that Daddy will be here any minute and it was almost time to leave. I was a liar because we had to wait a lot longer than I thought. Philip had originally told me he was thinking they'd be coming in around 5, then it got pushed back a little. And then we just stopped hearing from him so I figured he was on the home stretch and he couldn't get in touch with me.

So Easton and I went to the finish line and waited there... for an hour. Easton was getting increasingly angry and impossible to appease. A little before 8pm, he had a total meltdown, from the heat and exhaustion no doubt. I felt so bad for him, so at 8:00 we decided to head back to the hotel and wait for Daddy there.

Turns out, Philip crossed the finish line at 8:06pm. AH! I was kicking myself for leaving, I should have just stuck it out a little longer. There were over 11,000 cyclists in the race and most of them were doing it in two days, but a small group did it all in one day, so it was a pretty huge accomplishment for Philip. He has been training for this bike race for months so I really
wanted to be there for him at the end, so I was pretty bummed out we missed him by just mere minutes.

Despite the fact that we didn't actually see him crossing the finish line, it was still a good day! And we are so proud of him! (although I did tell him not to plan for any more races anytime soon, because man, it's super time consuming to train for them and we want daddy back for a little while!) :-)

The Sunday after the race, we hopped in the car and drove 12 hours to Blackfoot, Idaho. So here I am, listening to the sounds of fresh Idaho air blowing outside and the donkey Hee-Hawing behind me. And I like it. :)